Creating raving fans out of your HiPos

Your HiPos as raving fans!

‘Do you leave ‘employer branding’ to your PR or PA teams alone?’

‘Are you a leader who believes in creating an employer-brand through controlled and often top-down approach?’

‘Are you an executive-team who is constantly paranoid about the heath & fragility of your corporate brand?’

If the answer to any of the above questions is ‘Yes’, then you are missing out a big-time of an opportunity- your employee pool and more specifically, the ‘A’ talent or High-potential! While the hunt for good talent is fierce, the war for great talent is becoming insurmountable by the passing year, at least for the average companies. And, we know who the winner is in this war! The balance of power has tilted in favor of talent. Talent acquisition professionals are splitting their hairs, yet most of the organizations don’t look at their own backyards! In fact, majority of the organizations don’t have structured approaches to, what I call, creating raving fans out of your employees (read HiPos). The issue is further compounded given the changing demographics at workplace- by 2020, 50% of US workforce will be millennials.[1] Indian scenario would be even more challenging given the fact that the average age of Indian workforce by 2025 would be 27 years [2] . Add to this, the folklore of employee engagement from Gallup which claims that 70% of US workforce is not engaged at work [3]. You suddenly have a heady cocktail of organizational problems capable of unnerving even the most accomplished HR leader.

However clichéd it might sound, people remains the most valuable asset any organization has (though I have personal reservations in articulating people in flesh & blood as assets or human capital! Let that be a discussion of some other time). Yet we see disproportionate amount of branding exercise and resource allocations for product branding alone.  It requires a reference-shift from the executives and leaders to this neglected area of ‘creating raving fans from the employee-pool’. Edelman Trust Barometer 2015 throws up an interesting observation – ‘Customers trust the frontline employees more than the CEOs.’ [4] Talking of turning the conventional wisdom upside down, former CEO and philanthropist Vivek Nayar produced an off-beat legend by creating a culture of ‘Employees First Customer Second’ at HCL technologies which turned the company into one of the fastest growing & profitable IT service companies[5]. While so many glaring evidences and blue-ocean thoughts around employee engagement shout out loud, why do organizations and HR leaders fail to take cognizance of this critical issue?

In the following paragraphs, I will try to address the working model of ‘Creating raving fans and brand-ambassadors from HiPo employees’ especially in today’s socially-networked age. We all recognize the sheer power and influence of various social network platforms- both internal (ESNs) and external to the organizations. Consider this, in your organization you have a robust HiPo engagement program rubbing shoulder with an equally progressive ‘social media at work’ policy- the duo is overwhelmingly potent and as a forward-thinking HR leader,  you can play it to the hilt  to tap into the internal and external talent with élan. Your high-potential employees can augment and galvanize your employer brand like none. Combining the insights from the white papers, anecdotes and my own personal experience, a well-laid out HiPo engagement program in today’s hyper-connected workplace can do wonders to your employer brand. The architecture of such HiPo engagement must consider these four pillars,

Your HiPo has a personal brand too. Aligning the personal brand of ‘A’ players with that of the organization will have synergistic effects. As HR leaders, are you encouraging your talent to discover, nurture and augment his/ her personal brand. The reality is that most of these talents will have little idea of who they are or what they, as professionals, stand for. Create a climate where the talent is coached into looking inwards to dig out the raw personal brand and then you polish it to the perfection. During this exercise, try and find out the commonalities of themes where his professional-purpose and meaning either aligns or has the highest probability to align. This is your employee engagement’s sweet-spot. In fact, some of the progressive employers have incorporated the same in their HiPo and socialization programs.

Advocacy over social networks, be it ESNs or external! Crafting a robust social media policy which aims at educating and empowering rather than curbing and regulating employees’ interaction over social networks, will go a long way in terms of speed and reach. No amount of PR exercise can match the employee advocacy of the company brand on platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. Encourage your HiPo employees to capture important moments (customer interaction, special celebration at office, learning events among many others) by clicking photographs and briefing a short narrative over such platforms using appropriate hashtags. One healthcare major encourages its employees to be social media savvy and share such moments through visuals or posts using a suggested set of #ProudToBeXXXX , #IWorkAtXXX etc. These shares really catch the eye-balls of employees’ own personal networks and connections. At the end, your employer-brand shines up.

Drive the ‘meaning’ of work HiPos do. Getting the ‘A’ talents understand and appreciate the true ‘meaning’ of their everyday work is pivotal to any engagement program. The employee can commit his discretionary efforts only when a deeper sense of purpose behind the transactional work and KRAs is well appreciated. The leadership has a special responsibility in facilitating this deeper meaning for each of the employee and more so for the HiPos. One of cardiac surgery MNCs espouses its employees through a tagline saying ‘Helping every heart beat healthy- one at a time’ has a profound mind-share grabbing effect than possibly the best of features of its products. You’re appealing to human beings- employees who are emotional. This is why some authors argue a case that the position of CEOs should be replaced as Chief Meaning Officer (CMO). HR leaders and practitioners have a special duty to create a positive work environment through recognition, rewards and celebrations. It’s documented that such recognition cost a fraction in retaining and attracting top talents.

Create HiPo employee councils and quality circles. The reach and impact of your HiPo engagement program will get manifold augmented through active involvement of such employees in various councils and quality circles such as New Product Introduction councils, Brand-mapping exercises just to name a few. Cross-functional leaders should wear their creative hats in designing such forums. In turn, these talents will turn out to be the strident supporters of organizational vision & mission. They see such horizontal growth opportunities as equally fulfilling to their natural strengths.

If we look at any of the above tactics and measures they don’t cost a bomb but the ROI is far greater than any external media engagement plan that your PR teams will advocate for.

Are the HR leaders and executives open enough to shift the reference frame of employer branding and engage with high-potential talents which is fulfilling, sustainable and can be scaled up easily?

 

Reference

1. https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/managing-tomorrows…/reshaping-the-workplace.pdf
2. https://www.pwc.in/assets/pdfs/publications/2014/indian-workplace-of-2022.pdf
3. http://www.gallup.com/topic/employee_engagement.aspx
4. http://www.edelman.com/news/the-secret-to-trusted-innovation-your-employees/
5. www.hcltech.com/sites/default/files/EmplyeesFirstMiniBook.pdf

Social Leadership in the age of Social Media

Leadership, as we know, is often a over glorified thing! You ask any primary grade student about leadership and its traits- you have a list of such attributes as charismatic, influential, authorita…

Source: Social Leadership in the age of Social Media

Social Leadership in the age of Social Media

Leadership, as we know, is often a over glorified thing!

You ask any primary grade student about leadership and its traits- you have a list of such attributes as charismatic, influential, authoritative, decision-maker, over-the-top etc. thrown on to you in no time. Since the pre-historic ages, leadership has always been associated with the notion of power, command and influence and the one who had a band of followers. This model worked fine for many centuries. But, over the past two decades the rules of the game are being re-written, boundaries re-drawn and personalities being re-cast!

So, what changed fundamentally? Err… What transformed fundamentally?

The transformation is all about the ‘shift in power-balance’ in the backdrop of emerging (emerged?) social technologies read, Twitter and its ilks! Who can easily forget the upheavals and revolution unleashed by Twitter, Facebook and YouTube in such phenomena viz. Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street (OWS)? The emergence of such social networking platforms has given a new meaning to ‘Social Leadership’! Fundamentally speaking, Social leaders have followers because of their ability to bring people together, facilitate agreements and drive efforts in the same direction. Nelson Mandela can be seen as the prototype of a social leader.(Source: http://lexicon.ft.com/Term?term=social-leader).

According to The Center for Social Leadership, Social leaders serve and bless others. They create beauty in the world, lift the vision of mankind, broaden our possibilities, and deepen our life experience. They protect freedom, preserve peace, and ensure prosperity for as many people as possible. There are six pillars of Social Leadership

S ubmission
O penness
C alling
I ntegral Education
A ction
L iberty

In the following paragraphs, I will try to explain how these six pillars of social leadership are getting galvanized with the explosion of of social media .

Submission: Traditionally, Social leaders believe in and submit to a Higher Power, by whatever name and through whichever means they choose. They find inspiration, guidance, and stability from a source higher than themselves. Submission is the source of motivation and vision and ensures humility. In changed era of social media, this means social leaders would give in to the ‘Collective wisdom’ of netizens- they will ‘listen through their eyes’ as Charlene Li, the CEO & founder of Altimeter Groupcaptured so succinctly in her latest book ‘The Engaged Leader’. An example of submission is well chronicled by Charlene in her another book ‘Open Leadership’ where she explains how American Red Cross Society submitted to the collective wisdom of Citizen’s (Netizen’s) in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Initially they wished to control people’s negative comments about the society’s work but they soon realized that instead they should submit to their critiques and try bolster their good work rather than focusing on damage control.

Openness: Social leaders feel an abiding sense of openness in their conduct and dealing with their followers, society, institutions, and the universe at large. They know their thoughts, habits, and actions directly result in societal consequences. These leaders often lead a life that is an open book for the masses to gloss over and get inspired from. In today’s world of YouTube & Facebook, CXOs can’t afford to turn a blind eye to platforms such as Glassdoor. It’s true that the burden of expectations in social economy could be unnerving to many leaders, but there are more benefits to be reaped than to brood over. Millennials and Gen-Z put a premium to openness while selecting companies. Employee/ customer engagement has assumed a new dimension of openness in the face of social media. The unconventional CEO of Aetna, the largest American insurer, Mark Bertolini, connected personally with a terminally ill pancreatic cancer patient Arijit Guha and helped him secure the best treatment even when Guha had exhausted all his coverage- thanks to Twitter posts by Guha. This kind of openness is unprecedented before and takes the meaning of the word to a new level.

Calling: Social leaders traditionally have risen to the greater calling of the masses be it MLK or Nelson Mandela. They know with certainty that they were born for something great, unique, and specific. Furthermore, it is to know that if they don’t live up to their mission, the world suffers. In the age of social media, the leaders are turning unorthodox and turning the organizational pyramid upside down. Vineet Nayar, the former CEO of HCL technologies and founder of Sampark Foundation responded to his greater calling to ‘unleashing a million smiles’.

Integral Education: Integral means entire; complete; whole. Integral education, therefore, is education that leads to whole truth and complete “beingness.” It extends far beyond technical knowledge and specialized expertise. It explores human nature and seeks to answer such questions as, “Who are we? Why are we here? What is the purpose of life? What should our ideals be and how can we achieve them?” Not only is such an education whole in scope and methodology, but also its core purpose is to develop whole individuals — in other words, social leaders. In social economy and the age of Facebook & Twitter, learning is the hygiene of survival, all the more for the senior leaders. Effective social leaders such as Sir Richard Branson of Virgin group has the leadership mantra captured in 3Ls– Listen, Learn and Laugh!

Action: Social leaders bridge the gap between what is and what should be. While others are confused, despondent, and waiting, social leaders are confident, optimistic, and acting. They know that profound thinking must lead to appropriate and energetic action. Like Aetna’s CEO Mark Bertolini, social leaders would often go out of their traditional paths to break rules and make history for their organizations and society. A deep believer in the ‘whole Hindu view of the world’, Bertolini is credited for bringing in an un-American way of corporate life at Aetna and he often discredits American business schools of ‘financial poisoning’.

Liberty: Social leaders are intimately aware of the art, science, and process of government. They understand its nature and proper role. They do all in their power to secure and preserve freedom for all races, genders, and cultures. In this age of networked and social economy, leaders cherish and encourage their enterprises to express themselves, break rules and dare to go against the beaten paths. That’s precisely what Sir Richard Branson does at Virgin and is reported  to have said that ‘he hasn’t learnt the rules in the first place…’. Other social leaders such as the Pope of the Roman Catholic church, Pope Francis is widely acclaimed to have stood for civil liberties and is seen as unorthodox leader of the community.

What is common in all of the above social leaders?

These social and often servant leaders genuinely believe in the supremacy of human spirit, liberty, equality and humility. They truly embody the Level-5 leadership principles coupled with the power of modern collaborative and social technologies where they play the role of Creator, Curator, Conduit and disseminator of information and thus empowerment throughout the organizations and society.

Are you a Social Leader? Are you the one who nurtures social leaders in the organization?

Do you carry two different visiting cards?

Recently one of my team members gave me a visiting card holder which had card slots on both the sides implying you possibly could have two different cards for yourself or any other possible choices! Very few, if at all, professionals carry two different types of visiting cards. The moot point here is that should you as a professional carry two different cards- one which organization gives you and the other that truly represents you for who you are? The second one would be representing you as a person and what you stand for- your values, life purpose and your inner self!

I’ve been contemplating this thought for some times now that how leaders and organizations should inspire individuals to create their own visiting cards besides the one that announces their position in an organization! No, not for a moment, I am suggesting to hold two office bearing positions at any given time- a case of conflicting interests but rather a scenario where every employee of an organization has truly discovered a deeply congruent and coherent second (or should I say that it’s possibly the first and then comes the designated position) role which announces who he is and what he innately stands for?

The above scenario might sound utopian given the current workplace realities when it comes to employee engagement, motivation and discretionary efforts. If one googles Gallup Employee Engagement , he or she comes to the landing page which interestingly enough has a mosaic of reports that can make the heart of any seasoned business leader sink. A veritable graveyard of indices of employee engagement!  Sample some of these,

“70% of US workers are not engaged!”

“Percentage of engaged employees US-32%; World- 13%”

“17% workers strongly agree that their company has open communication”

“82% time wrong person hired to manage”

And the writing on the tombstones goes grimmer and discouraging!

(Source: http://www.gallup.com/topic/employee_engagement.aspx accessed at 4:18pm 12-Mar-16)

There are annual employee engagement surveys and Pulse surveys carried out by organizations but the needle seems to have moved little. There could be differing notes on the factors behind poor state of engagement worldwide. Some cite this to be a result of non-scientific methodologies employed to carry out such surveys among others. Plausible explanations would go towards the usual suspects-

• Failing to integrate employee engagement with overall business & people goals and reducing it to just annual survey formalities
• Defining engagement as a percentage of employees who are not dissatisfied or are merely content with their employer instead of a state of strong employee involvement, commitment and enthusiasm
• Relying on measures that tell leaders and managers what they want to hear — “We’re doing great!”
• Building a culture where managers and leaders are developed to look into the minutest details and measures of employee engagement (such as an IRP program) rather than solely occupied with bigger initiatives with great fanfare but little efforts and commitment by executives and leaders to weave that into organizational fabric

Given the above gloomy scenario of employee engagement and its genesis, it would be honey to the ears of organizational leaders and CHROs to have measures where employees themselves are sensitized to search for the deeper meaning of their job- a way to connect their daily deliverables with larger canvass! For example, one medical device company dealing with cardiac surgeries exhorted its sales professionals to view their everyday job as a means to help a ‘distressed heart’ beat optimally and healthy thereby saving a precious life! I am sure the pitch is insurmountable in its purpose even for the most cynical of the employees.

This rekindles the memory of the NASA janitor who had a larger story unfolding around him; he was helping to make history. It happened that during a visit to the NASA space center in 1962, President John F. Kennedy noticed a janitor carrying a broom. He interrupted his tour, walked over to the man and said,

“Hi, I’m Jack Kennedy. What are you doing?”

“Well, Mr. President,” the janitor responded, “I’m helping put a man on the moon.”

To most people, this janitor was just cleaning the building. An insight of epic proportions which brings forth the deeper sense of purpose which transcended way beyond what one does in literal sense!

In a recent gathering of entrepreneurs and start-up CEOs at TiECON, the largest entrepreneurship conference in Silicon Valley, legendary Welch likened the role of Chief Executive Officers as Chief Meaning Officer (CMO). Leaders across the organizational layers have this intrinsic responsibility to help their people find the true meaning of the work they do day in and day out. As leaders if we are able to paint a real sense of purpose of what one does and help him or her connect with larger scheme of things, living by the quarters would be a forgone thing! Today leaders and managers are uniquely challenged to balance their focus towards business deliverables and make an attempt to strike the right cord with the employee’s deeper sense of purpose. This sense of purpose often called ‘life purpose’, is the area in an employee’s life which makes him feel the real-happiness, see the connect with the larger canvass on an esoteric front while on a more visible side, gets his batteries recharged after a day’s hard work.

Do you as a leader know what make your employees tick? As a team leader, do you know what does an individual team member care the most about? Have you ever engaged with your people deliberating on the deeper meaning of their duties and jobs? Often organizations chart out lofty vision and mission statements to their people caring little if the employees are on board. Most often, such visioning exercises end up being all about ‘What’ (Vision) and ‘How’ (Mission) with a clear neglect to ‘Why’ (Belief or Meaning). Simon Sinek talks of ‘Golden Circle’ in his famous TED talk on ‘How Great Leaders Inspire Action’ where he explains how great leaders motivate people by appealing to the ‘Why’ or ‘belief’ or ‘purpose’ and not just ‘What’ (akin to the job descriptions of an employee). Similarly, great companies like Apple builds in the communication of ‘Why’ (in its case, to challenge the status-quo and think different through its numerous products) in its marketing pitch rather than pitching solely on ‘What’ (the great products it churns out). People get aligned to a purpose they themselves strongly believe in. History has enough evidence to throw up- be it Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr! They built their followers by appealing to the deeper purpose of their respective constituencies.

Relevance of ‘deeper purpose’ or ‘golden circle’ in successfully leading people and organizations can never be overemphasized. When managers exhort their employees to do a delayering of ‘deeper purpose’ and get an alignment with the organizational goals, you have an army of engaged and motivated people who deliver their best not for any incentives and inducement but for what they truly believe in. However, it’s difficult for managers to accomplish this higher status of leading and influencing if they go by the rule-book alone or they are driven by growth numbers quarter-on-quarter. Interactions at this stage are mostly transactional and less of relational.

How can leaders get their own second visiting cards and those for the teams they lead?

The deeper meaning and the relevance of one’s job to the larger scheme of things (you can even explore it to any ‘superordinate goals’ that would require the employee to do a thorough ‘self-introspection’ often aided by a trained professional or a coach. Many a times, the managers themselves, might need assistance from a professional coach who are specifically trained to help them dig out the natural gifts and talents, anchors in life.

• Deeper interaction time with team members: Treating team members much beyond revenue vending machines and taking a genuine interests in her development would help managers look for those nuanced attributes which can be closer to their passion and life purposes. Structuring frequent one-on-ones with intent to deep listening is one such tool. Recently one manager confided that he could gain a completely new perspective of one of his team members after he started engaging through a dedicated one-on one with this team member even though they have been working together for almost four years.
• Activities that bring twinkles in your eyes: Managers and the people they lead would do a world of good to themselves if they recognize those activities and engagements which recharge their drained batteries lift your spirit even when chips are down. Often these are feeble signals which need to be captured and augmented, called it power of weal signal!
• Seek & provide feedback: Feedback could help overcome the blind-spots. Often our co-workers have those minute observations about us that are the precursors to our deeper calls and at times these are the things we might be oblivious to.
• Take time to be with ‘yourself’: ‘Beat the hurry, you’ve the time of the world’ was never so relevant than in today’s time of digital distraction and ever mounting performance pressure and social pulls and pushes. One can stumble upon those life purposes and deeper calls in life through such moment when you are truly connected with your deeper self. These moments of serendipity are the gateway to our life purposes. No wonder, even Siddhartha required the ‘moment of enlightenment’ before he could turn onto Lord Buddha.

If you already have found your second visiting card, you’re blessed, keep on pursuing its cause. This would bring karmic, spiritual and even material gains to you. If not found one, keep looking for…you and your heart would know when you meet this. Your heart will ring bells and eyes twinkle!

Personal branding in social age!

We know of 5-Ps of product branding- here’s what you must know to create a compelling brand called ‘You’ in today’s digital age.

Character, Community , Channel, Creation/ Curation and Commitment are the equivalents of Product, People, Place, Promotion and Price in marketing. Are you creating your Cs meaningfully?

Coaching Presence- A Key Competency to Gift your Client With

In my previous blog I have written about the critical roles trust and intimacy play in coach-client relationship. Trust is an outcome of behaviours done consistently over a period of time- no short cuts here! Long period of staying ‘invested’ in a relationship with transparency and respect helps achieve this. How do you achieve these in your coaching relationship? Your time is ticking!

I am exploring one of the building blocks to achieve the state of trust and intimacy with your client through what we call- coaching presence! The meaning of word ‘Presence’ is to be available or to exist at a certain place or time. Coaching presence then, is to be fully present with your client- moment-by-moment and at times in physical reference too. We will explore the nuances of coaching presence and how to effectively achieve it in a coaching relationship.

A typical coaching session can have transcripts that might read as,

Coach: “…Hello Jim! How’re you doing this evening?”

Client: “Hi Peter. I am great. Thank you.”

Coach: “Is there anything that you need to ‘clear’ out before we begin today’s session?”

Here the coach is attempting to ‘clear’ out any pattern that might be playing heavy on client’s mind and can potentially keep him/ her away from being fully present in the coaching process. It’s a pattern interrupt. Similarly, for a coach to be the most effective it’s equally, if not more, important to be fully present 100% with his client. He’s ‘in-sync’ and fully ‘dancing-in-the-moment’ with the client thereby brings the most authentic-self as a coach. In this context of defining coaching presence this observation from Silsbee (2008) is profound “…Presence is a state of awareness in the moment, characterised by the felt experiences of timelessness, connectedness and a larger truth.”

Let’s see why it’s such a critical competency of a coach to exhibit coaching presence as a process,

• ‘Safe-space’ for the client: Coaching presence helps create the safe space for the client where she can go deep inside to dig out the inner-most gifts and resources. It’s critical for the client in order to create a different reference-frame where solutions emerge
• ‘Co-creating the magic of coaching relationship’: Master coaches would always go by the client’s agenda and ready to experiment and explore each other’s vulnerabilities- nothing seems rigid in this game, always fluid to take a new route. The coach in this state cares little about the process and smoothly glides through with agility, innovation and mutual learning as the hallmark.
• Establishing the most authentic self of the coach: Being fully present and in-the-moment will help establish the authenticity in the coaching process and relationship. The coach moves to the state similar to ‘unconscious competence’ in learning and coaching.

The very essence of coaching presence by a coach will make the client lower his/ her guard and explore the gifts and resources deep within. The coach helps the client explore and experiment with various thoughts, ideas and plans tapping her own resources- the coach is fully listening- a deep listening and no place for judgements here.

For professional coaches, the mastery over coaching presence is a journey like any other competency-building. Every coach progresses through a maturity continuum from being trained to attaining mastery. As one moves up the curve these skills become innate and spontaneous. However, the following logical steps might help new coaches gain proficiency faster and make this capability all natural,

• Self-awareness & reflection: Being actively self-aware in the initial coaching episodes and through training a coach can take the initial journey. Reflection is a key element.
• Meditation: Meditation is shown to have favourable effect in developing presence and ‘mindfulness’
• Video-taping initial episodes should help the coach review his own process and supervision by master coaches
• Centring and deep breathing help calm nerves and helps the mind be fully-present
• Developing a mind-set to let go of the process without ignoring the elements and their deeper connect to help the client

When a coach undergoes his journey towards mastering the coaching presence, he will soon realise that coaching steps and processes come naturally to him and doesn’t require exerting his ‘coach’s hat’. Like any other professional- a sportsperson or a singer, the coach effortlessly flows through his coaching. In other words, coaching presence gives a coach his ‘sweet-spot’ in coaching relationship.

Let’s examine how does coaching presence impact the coaching relationship?

• With coaching presence in full swing a coach transcends to ‘Being’ coaching from ‘Doing’ coaching- in other words, it allows client to connect with deeper-self (Being) from the superficial one (Doing)
• Higher order trust between the coach and the coachee leading to superior and lasting outcomes
• Helps develop presence in the coachee too. Research into clients’ behaviour establishes that they start unconsciously develop their own presence and hence moving from quick-fixes to permanent solution

With coaching presence a coach innovates and demonstrates flexibility in the process and learning. He is equally vulnerable and might not know the client’s state and hence it makes the coach be more effective and connect with the client faster and deeper. A master coach with superior coaching presence can co-create the entire coaching experience in a magical fashion like building the aircraft while flying it. This being one of the competencies laid out by the International Coach Federation(ICF), can be built with experience and being self-aware. The coaching relationship can be highly fulfilling with coaching presence.

How do you work on building your coaching presence?

Everything in a name- BHRP is next frontier in HRM!

BHRP- Does this mean anything to you HR folks? Possibly, you might shrug it off as a typo error instead HRBP! Are we that consumed in our own selves that we even refuse to recognize assembly of alphabets in a certain fashion? Let me clarify to you, BHRP stands for Business Human Resources Partner. Without even going into semantics, this particular arrangement of four-words makes strong case for ‘self-discovery’ by Human Resources function at best and a common-sense meaning at worst. Let’s go into the literal meaning of BHRP and it turns out to symbolize each business representative as a human resources partner. You might wonder if all this efforts as a mere jugglery of words! Hey, no way, pause a while and try to see the deeper sense coming out of this pattern. All these bring us to the topic- Has HR chewed more than it can eat? Name HR today, and you can picture the guys attempting to play catch-up in possibly every hue of business function. Sometimes, it goes to the extent of being over-jealous in guarding and furthering its own turf. HR in business process re-engineering, strategy meetings, reorganization, cultural sensitization, diversity & inclusion besides the usual stuffs such as hiring, staffing, performance appraisals, L&D, talent management and the list goes on. Time is ripe for setting the house in order and it calls for a transformation in approach.

Simply, Too much to digest!

While no hint is being made that HR shouldn’t proactively engage business, listen and learn from it and accordingly, intervene through multitude of programs and initiatives. There are certain scopes where it needs to create space, enable and let-go. BHRP is one such concept. Simply put, it seeks to create every business-representative a HR custodian- be it, talent management, L&D or performance appraisal . HR needs to democratize itself within and outside of the function. Difficult to let-go of things, right? Here comes handy the digital technologies- S.M.A.C acronym for Social, Mobile, Analytic (read, Big data) and Cloud. These technologies have level-played the game. Every constituent right from the prospective employees, new-recruits up to the CEO every-one is as empowered or as much vulnerable. Recent developments at Mozilla are still fresh in minds. What it means for HR? Philosophically put, let-go of the control to gain command and be more effective in partnering the business. The trend is deepening and showing up in some progressive and out-ward looking companies

A-Z of Professional Coaching: ‘A’ for Awareness in Client

A professional coaching relationship is special in the sense that it has ‘human-potential movement’ (if I may coin that term) at its core and thereby has a super-ordinate goal much beyond performance goals alone. A holistic coaching framework hence should address both ‘Doing’ and ‘Being’ part of an individual. In that sense, the role of a coach as someone who holds a mirror to the client for increasing her self-awareness and inviting to dig deeper into herself to treasure-hunt the natural gifts and talents. This is very critical and different from some other relationships such as mentoring, training, counselling and consulting. The coach is no expert in the client’s domain of work and still gets the client achieve the best of herself is through inviting her tap into richer and fuller resources that might have been buried deep inside. This brings up the competency of a coach as creating awareness in the client as one of the cornerstone capabilities for a coach.

We have spoken of coaching as a process in guided self-discovery. The coach’s prime tool in this journey is powerful questioning whereby the client is invited to go deeper and explore the innermost beauties and come up with solutions to the issues at hand. The coach obviously has no agenda of his own and goes by the agenda of the client. This is critical in creating a safe space for the client to reveal those magnificent talents and gifts. The whole coaching journey is exploratory in nature and often both the coach and client have no clue what’s next to be discovered albeit they have the guiding philosophies and a deep faith in one’s true gifts and talents.

Why is creating awareness in a client such a critical piece in coaching relationship?

Coaching is not for quick-fixes but sustainable changes, mostly in behaviours and beliefs. These are to be effected through inside-out approach rather than the other way. Tapping into one’s resources, beliefs and reference-frames are the levers to bring about these long-lasting changes. A coach often asks the client to act from adissociated state. This is similar to visualize oneself playing out on the centre-stage from an audience place in a theatre or similar to a director seeing the actor playing out the part in front of the camera. This dissociated state creates profound insights about the performance as whole and then as the coach coaxes the client into certain action (using thought-provoking questions) for her to bring about the desired changes- both Doing & Being selves! The client generates solutions and the coach allows her to pursue them. There is no hint of the coach dictating any solution to the client.

The obvious discussion then should be on how to create awareness in a client during coaching conversations?

Before we go to the above, let me be upfront in saying that for a coach to create awareness in a client it’s a pre-requisite for the coach to be fully aware of his own thoughts, prejudices, biases and likings. Otherwise, he might run the risk of unduly influencing and colouring the thoughts and beliefs of the client- not a desirable thing in coaching! The coach can successfully create a safe and explorative environment for the client by asking powerful questions to shift reference-frames, challenge existing beliefs and a creating coaching presence for the client. The following approaches to create awareness in a client are well documented and practiced,

• Powerful questioning: The critical importance of incisive questions in coaching has been well documented. The premise that a client has all the answers and solutions to issues within themselves – the coach only helps through exploration and the process himself explores all possibilities and learns more about the client.
• Silence in a coaching conversation: A master coach would often ask the client powerful questions and practices deep listening where silence is an integral part. Often the client upon contemplation comes up with responses such as- ‘Wow! That’s terrific – never thought of that earlier’. This is a cusp in self-awareness where the coach practices silence and allows the client to further go deeper and continue that serious contemplation. Any input from the coach at this juncture could prove to be counter-productive and might shunt the free-flowing thought process of the client. Questions are useful at the two ends of tis contemplation continuum- at the beginning of the process where powerful questions stirs up the client and again towards the end where the client hints of some deep- revelations and then the coach tries to funnel down the process. Often you know that the awareness in a client is imminent when you see the client going silent and in reflective mode.
• Allowing the client to explore every possible strand of thought chain:Master Coaches are themselves as much explorer as their clients. They are driven by exploration rather than fixed solutions and their invitation to the client for the same far exceeds any possible hint of solution. Periodic encouragement with phrases such as ‘Wow’, ‘How magnificent is that’,‘Wonderful’ are catalysts that propel the client further in the journey. A coach might ask the client for confirmation- ‘What is this awareness all about, could you please share?’ or a simple statement such as ‘Allow yourself the magnificence of newly explored awareness’

 What next after Awareness? From Awareness to Action!

With the client gaining increased awareness about self, a belief or simply behaviour what next for her? The coach being fully present in the moment with the client cajoles the client what she would like to do with this heightened sense of awareness. Usually, the client contemplates and commits action based on the new found awareness. There are times when the client might wish to stay with the awareness for some more time and it’s perfectly right for the coach to allow the client to sink in with the sense of awareness and stay with it. It’s the client’s prerogative to decide the course of action and its timing once the awareness has set in. After all, clients action and her commitment will largely depend on how deep and touching are these newly discovered awareness.

Trust and Intimacy: The Elixir of Professional Coaching

Coaching is a professional partnership between a coach and a client in an empowering environment. The purpose of any form of coaching is to bring about lasting changes in beliefs and thus the accompanying behaviours. This is best achieved when the client has unconditional trust and fail-safe intimacy. You bet these to be easier said than done! …and this makes the process of professional coaching so much satisfying and fulfilling for the client and the coach alike. Trust can be held as the most basic of all coaching hygiene. With trust given, intimacy in the coaching relationship grows so that the client can share his/her vulnerabilities with the coach and more importantly, turn those insights and vulnerabilities into potent tools to embrace newer beliefs and behaviours.

Coaching relationship can be looked into like any other form of professional engagement in the sense that, the client expects clear outcomes and holds the coach with an expectation that s/he will undertake the journey together. This coaching journey is expected to be a process of revelation for both the coach and the client- Trust and Intimacy in the coaching relationship act as elixir. Many years back one of the business leaders spoke to me about coaching as a relationship where the coach doesn’t need to exert him/herself as a ‘coach’ and compared the process as a gentle breeze of air which you could feel only and can’t see! How subtle is the metaphor! A coaching process doesn’t have to be an act of ‘into the eyes’ but of excellence in spontaneity- both for the client and coach.

When a coach invites a client to be his/her true self and go-inside, really deep, so as to establish a strong connect with life’s purpose and values, the coaching process is in full bloom. The fragrance of this would evoke the client to reveal for him/ herself the innate resources and options which was hitherto untapped of by the client. The coach primarily does this by the asking the client powerful questions and deep listening. He is non-judgemental and allows the client to explore and express his/her natural gifts and life-purposes. This is the moment where new resources are explored and the client is made more resourceful by none other than him/herself. A coach fully shares the client’s agenda and is prepared to be vulnerable with the client and have the client be vulnerable with the coach. In essence, they’re co-creating the coaching relationship being equal partners in the process.

The following actions from the coach would help create an atmosphere of trust and intimacy with the client,

• Establishing coaching agenda- Begin with the end in mind: Getting the client clearly articulate the goals of engagement, the measures of success and the respective roles that the client and the coach have in the coaching relationship. This will make the whole process transparent and the partnership established from the word ‘go’. A coach is not a consultant, a mentor, a trainer or a psychologist. This basic step would create right expectations from the process and the coach thereby creating the building blocks of a mutually trusting relationship.
• (Deep)Listening with intent to understand the client: As a coach you would do great service to yourself and of course the client by deep listening without being judgemental. Holding client in all faith and fairness is the first step towards creating an element trust. Providing the client a fail-safe environment in order to explore his/her vulnerabilities and being truthful to oneself will help connect with deeper meaning and resources in life. In this way, the coach respects the client’s agenda without imposing his own. After all, coaching is a process of guided self-discovery. Being fully present in the moment and with the client is then natural offshoot of deep listening.
• Never divulge any of the client’s information: It’s hara-kiri of sorts! The coach receives all information from the client with deep humility and confidence. By revealing him/herself, the client is holding the coach in great responsibility and making both of them vulnerable in the process. Both of them are equal partners in the process. The coach has deep faith and trust in the process while client has in him.
• Actively create a safe place for the client: Each strand in a coach’s communication- verbal & non-verbal endeavours to create the ‘safe place’ to be in no matter what the current state is! This fail-safe atmosphere encourages the client to delve deep inside without being asked to do so. This is the beginning of recognizing the current pattern and then in a thought-provoking manner the coach askes the client to ‘interrupt’ that pattern. This non-judgemental and empathetic act of coach helps his client move forward in the process of guided self-discovery and initiative on permanent change of belief and behaviour.
• Be explorative not prescriptive in your approach: The coach must respect the client’s view of the situation and doesn’t exhibit any signs of his interests or views of the situation. The coach begins the coaching journey being ignorant of the client’s state and trusts the process of coaching for a guided self-discovery for the client and enlightenment as a coach. The coach is ready to explore his own vulnerabilities for the coaching relationship to flourish. He along with the client is ready to explore possibilities and empowers the client to decide for him/herself.
• Walk-the-talk & talk-the-walk: A coach’s most authentic self should bear the stamp of integrity. Right from smaller procedural elements such as showing up on time for the coaching engagement to bigger things such as maintaining the privacy of the client should be genuine and the coach should walk-the-talk. Keeping any promises as part of the coaching conversation should be held sacrosanct. For the client’s smallest of the accomplishments the coach must acknowledge and celebrate, in other words, talk-the-walk. While he does so, he also needs to keep a ‘dissociated’ approach from the entire event so as to avoid personally getting entangled in the process. This might require practice and after sometimes this comes as natural and spontaneous where he doesn’t need to ‘act’ as a coach

While these behaviours of the coach will ensure that the trust takes root in the coaching process, these are to be demonstrated throughout the engagement. This will, over a period of time, help him coach for ‘being-self’ moving beyond the ‘doing-self’ of the client. By encouraging the client to connect at ‘deeper-level’ to explore various resources within, the coach is weaving the magic of long-lasting changes.

Powerful Questioning: Life-blood of Professional Coaching

ICF defines coaching as partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential, which is particularly important in today’s uncertain and complex environment. Please mark the key phrases here; ‘thought- provoking’ and ‘creative’! We will deal with them in subsequent paragraphs.

The word ‘Coaching’ comes from ‘coach’ meaning- to transport something from one place to the other; here in the world of professional coaching it means shifting client’s frame of reference from one state to the other in order to elicit lasting behavioural changes- a precursor for sustainable ‘Doing’ and ‘Being’ changes in client’s life. In order to affect such a shift, the coach has the most trusted and versatile tool- Insightful questions! Like any other forms of effective human interaction and conversation, questions are the most powerful levers that prod the listener (read, client) into self-introspection and deep-diving within him/herself. A professional coach operates with the fundamental doctrine that a client has all the resources and wherewithal within him/herself to make the desired transformation. Then a coach facilitates a process similar to ‘guided-discovery’ and incisive questions are the cornerstone of the approach a coach adopts. Such powerful questioning is both an art and a science – art in the sense that a coach masters the craft of such incisive questions through practice and experience; science in the sense that an impactful question has a definite anatomy- we can call it ICE- Intent, Content & Experience (for the client).

As professionals, we know that open-ended and closed-ended are the two broad types of questions to elicit desired response in a conversation. However, for a coach any and all open-ended questions are just not good enough! If a coach partners with a client in thought-provoking and creative episodes of coaching engagements then the coach must go beyond the usual engagement questions (often the open-ended types) to those which have the potential to create a shift in the reference-frame for the client. This is achieved by the coach by creating a certain ‘vacuum’ or ‘space’ in coaching parlance. This space is a uniquely powerful and a provocateur of sort for the client, nudging him/her into self-reflect mode wherein the client goes deeper into him/herself and try to dig out the unique attributes, natural gifts and talents. In a way, such questions make the client more resourceful. The most impactful of coaching questions effectively create this space or vacuum. For example, a good open ended question in normal conversation might sound as ‘What all options do you have to cope-up with the irresistible issue at home front?’ However, for a coaching conversation in similar circumstances the coach might ask his client ‘In case the approach that you have chosen fails what other alternatives could you think of?’ The latter assumes that the client has already reviewed his/her options (if not already, then it does provoke the client to swing into action) and is resourceful enough to creatively think and decide for him/herself. This is a great deal of empowerment and taking control of the situation for the client.

Subsequently, we look into the process of powerful questioning (one of the eleven core competencies of a professional coach from ICF) and we can divide this section into three distinct aspects- objective of asking evocative questions, what incisive questions are and what incisive questions are not!

First, the purpose for a coach to ask such powerful and sometimes discomforting questions to the client is to

• Shake and shift the frame of reference for the client with which s/he approaches the issue at hand
• Provoke the client to get in touch with his/her deeper sense of purpose, often called life-purpose and values
• Create and visualize a future that doesn’t exists now but with a premise that the client has necessary resources within self to bring this creative piece into fruition

The coach often acts out of sheer inquisitiveness and curiosity to learn the client better and in the process make the client more self-aware too- a journey of guided self-discovery and contemplation that nudges the client into action. Deep-listening in conjunction with such evocative questions make for the perfect pair of tools that a professional coach often employs. When the coach poses such impactful questions followed by a deep listening and being present with the client, it creates the vacuum (space) for the client to discover alternatives and resources which otherwise would have eluded him/her. This is precisely what many a coaches call ‘interrupting the pattern’. After all, coaching is to break the usual flow and allow the client to divert the flow in an uncharted terrain and such conversations mediated through evocative questions help the client see and pursue a new path to meaningfulness in life.

What isn’t a powerful question in coaching context? This will help us frame what powerful questioning in coaching is. A coaching question is NOT,

• A tool or technique to establish the coach as intellectually and cognitively superior to the client (spare that for the mentors)
• An approach by the coach to engage in a verbal duel (spare that for the consultants)
• A means to elicit reams of information that are rooted in the past with little emphasis for forward looking discourse by the client (spare that for managers)

So far we have spoken of open-ended powerful questioning techniques. Professional coaches are craftsmen of timely closed-ended questions also. These closed-ended questions help the client zero-in on the outcomes and action-steps. How to optimally place a closed-ended question in a coaching conversation is a skilful task- do it pretty early in the conversation and you have the client submitting by saying ‘I don’t know’! When applied at the opportune time in the course of coaching engagement these questions will jolt the client into serious contemplation and subsequently, into action. So we see definitive roles that various types of evocative questions have in a powerful coaching engagement. A master coach will ask such incisive questions with élan and ease thereby making the coaching conversation more natural and spontaneous- hygiene for the client to reveal his deeper states of meaning and resourcefulness.

As we often say, powerful questioning in coaching is a journey to unknown but welcoming future state for both the coach and the client- a journey that every professional coach worth his salt has to undertake for the superior coaching outcome. Are you ready yet?